By Rocky Shire

The Super Outdoor Weekend at Elk City Lake always provides an opportunity to share stories and experiences from the trail with other KTC members. This year’s (2002) event was not an exception. At breakfast on Sunday morning John Haynes and I discussed our personal encounters with wild animals on the trail and in particular our encounters with bears. While backpacking in the Rocky Mountains, John came upon a large brown bear. John watched the bear feeding on the carcass of a deer from a vantage point in the trees no more than fifty or sixty feet from the bear. The bear finally disappeared into the forest and John continued on his way. At least this is John’s story and as far as I know he is sticking to it.

Some of you may remember my article in the last issue of the newsletter concerning mountain biking in the North Woods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at Porcupine State Park. While my sons and I were mountain biking on an isolated double track trail, I rode on ahead of them and came face to face with a very large black bear. The bear was crossing the trail in front of me. I was not close enough to spit on it, but at the time it sure seemed like it. As in John’s case, I stopped no more than sixty feet from it while the bear and I contemplated what to do about each other. Fortunately for me the bear made a good decision and lumbered off into the dense vegetation on the other side of the trail. Not all close encounters of the bear kind end well for humans, but these did for John and me.

This conversation with John reminded me of some of my other personal experiences with wild animals while hiking or mountain biking. There are two that stand out in my mind and both of them occurred with my brother, Robert. Once, while we were hiking in the wilderness area of the Gallatin Range south and east of Bozeman, Montana, we came around a sharp bend in the trail and found ourselves a very short distance—spitting distance—from a moose with a calf at its side. The potential for danger is always there when one comes upon a wild animal escorting its young, and we made a hasty retreat away from the moose. Okay, so we ran away. When we finally looked back we saw the mother and calf running away across a meadow at some distance from us. This was fortunate for us because further escape was cut off by the fact that we were backed up against a precipice and the next step was straight down. I will never forget the experience and I assure the reader that a full-grown moose grazing a few feet away is an imposing site.

The other incident occurred on a day hike in the low-slung rugged mountains west of Cody, Wyoming. Robert and I were hiking along the top of a ridge covered with loose dirt and fine gravel. We were blazing our own trail in this isolated region because there was scant vegetation and little danger of becoming lost. After we had hiked about a mile along the ridge of this range of mountains, we suddenly looked down to see tracks of a large animal in the loose dirt. Neither of us has ever qualified as an animal tracker, but in this case we did not have to be. These were clearly the tracks of a mountain lion or cougar and they were fresh. The tracks were leading away in the direction we were going. We both became somewhat wary as we continued onward. We followed the tracks for some distance until they veered to the right and then back in the direction from which we had just come. It was at this point that paranoia set in for both of us. We decided that we had blazed enough new trail. We did not particularly want to retrace our footsteps given the fact that the tracks were headed back in that direction. We adopted a decisive course of action. We decided to head straight down the side of the mountain. The descent was steep and it consisted of the same loose dirt and gravel that covered the ridge. We very carefully made our way down the side of the mountain. Which is another way of saying that we slid most of the way down on the seat of our pants. More than likely there was no reason for concern on our part, but I prefer to think that we erred on the side of caution in our hasty departure from that ridge.

At Elk City Lake on the Eagle Rock Mountain Bike Trail, which I completed in 1996, I have had occasion to see a wide variety of wildlife while riding. Beavers have monitored my activities from the river, which runs parallel to part of the trail. The ubiquitous white tail has bounded away from me many times and startled armadillos have frequently darted between the wheels of my bike. A golden eagle has circled vigilantly overhead on several occasions forcing me to stop riding to watch its soaring flight. Twice I have seen a pair of foxes near the trail. Probably the most unique animal sighting on the bike trail occurred a little over a year ago. I was riding through the tall grass in the middle section of the trail and movement straight ahead of me on the trail caught my attention. I looked up to see a bobcat trotting away from me about thirty yards ahead on the single track. As soon as it became aware of my presence, it bounded off into the tall grass at the side of the trail. Of course there are the occasional appearances made by possums and wild turkeys. These are usually reluctant to yield the right of way to me. Then, there is the resident sentry, the hoot owl. It especially likes to make its presence known when I am riding the trail near sunset. As the shadows lengthen on the trail, the owl’s hooting adds an air of mystery and an awareness of the splendid isolation along the riverbank.

If there is a point to this, then it lies in the fact that the trail, however and wherever one uses it, has much to offer. If we happen to be in the right place at the right time, we may be lucky enough to see some of Mother Nature’s remarkable creatures running free—free of the compromises of civilization.

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(For my brother, Robert and the many wonderful trail experiences that we have shared over the past forty years.)